As a solid-state image pickup unit such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) image sensor or a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) image sensor, a solid-state image pickup unit using an organic photoelectric conversion film made of an organic semiconductor for each pixel has been proposed (for example, PTL 1).
In this solid-state image pickup unit, each pixel has a configuration in which the above-described organic photoelectric conversion film is sandwiched between a pair of electrodes for signal extraction. In such a configuration, a technique of providing a charge block layer (charge blocking layer) using an organic material to adjust a work function difference between the electrode and the organic photoelectric conversion film has been proposed (refer to PTL 2).